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Friday, September 26, 2014

5 (basic) things you can do this week to help make you feel better

Well, what do you know? Amy from Divine Essentials must have the magic touch. After seeing her last night for the first time, I went through my whole day today without taking any Aleve and still was relatively comfortable. I certainly felt better than I have in weeks.

Needless to say, I signed up for another 30-minute sports massage for next week. Did I mention you can book it online? And, no, I'm not getting any kickbacks from mentioning her here.

Which brings me to what I really wanted to tell you about today: Five things I'm doing this week to address my injury (in my case, piriformis syndrome) that you may want to try if you're hurt. So here goes...

1. Listen to your doctor. Well, duh. But I've been known to think I know better, so sometimes I don't really do exactly as I'm told. This time, sports med doc said to take this week off, so I am. There. I did it. For a whole week.

Almost. Is it Saturday yet?

2. Stretch. I've read conflicting stories about whether runners should stretch before and/or after a run. What's not for debate is the benefit of stretching in the first place. You can talk to your doctor (see above) about whether you should do any stretching and when. I've been doing these stretches. Here are some more and even more that you might find helpful.

3. Do yoga. I have a love/hate relationship with yoga. I know it's good for me and that most people can do it, with some accommodations. I, for example, use a yoga block.

It looks like this:

Got mine at Target for very little money. It works for me because it allows me to do more of the yoga poses without killing myself. I still tip over a lot, but you may do better than me. Because you're good enough, you're smart enough and, doggone it, people like you.

I finally got over my yoga aversion when I started thinking of it more as stretching than as exercising. There are lots of free yoga videos online. I tried a few and settled on these.

4. Sit less. Recent studies suggest that sitting is a killer. I thought I was OK because I'm relatively active, but no more. I am forcing myself to get up throughout the day. I even find myself getting up to go talk to people at work instead of emailing them. I'm sure they're thrilled.

A good friend swears by her stand-up desk, but I'm really holding out for this option instead:

Source: Mashable

5. Drink more water. This is one I struggle with, but I'm working on it. I've been drinking enough more water that I'm finding it helps with #4 above because I'm spending half my day traipsing to the bathroom.

My drinking glass, of course.

After reading even more studies that suggest that I perhaps shouldn't use as many artificial sweeteners as I'm accustomed to, I plan to find healthier options for flavoring my water.

And now, I gotta go. But think about implementing one or more of these ideas in the coming week. Basic? Yes. Consider this a friendly reminder to do things you already knew you should be doing but probably don't.

Put together, they certainly have helped make me feel better this week. That and Amy's divine massage.

Do you do any or all of these things already? Do I really need to include a disclaimer or did you figure out already that I'm not a healthcare professional and that you should consult one before doing anything I suggest?

2 comments:

Cannot say enough good things about standing up to work. Even RunnersWorld says sitting is the new smoking -- EVEN if you're fit! http://www.runnersworld.com/health/sitting-is-the-new-smoking-even-for-runners

Thanks for sharing that link. While I don't envision myself at a stand-up desk quite yet, I'm certainly getting up from my desk a lot more often. I even found myself doing that at home this weekend. Don't want to my sitting to be the equivalent of a pack-a-day smoker. Yuck. Hopeful my changes stick.